Death can bring us closer
by BroadwayPianoLady
Summary: Glinda is a completely different person after Elphaba's death. After a neardeath experience, she find someone she hasn't seen in years. Gliyero. Rating to be safe for now, may be more explicit later.


**_I know, I should be concentrating on Let Me Count The Ways and Till Death Do Us Part, but I'm having major writer's ADD this summer, and this story came to me in a different light. Glinda is a very changed person since Elphaba's death, so don't expect bubbly, blonde Glinda, expect an Elphaba-type Glinda. Gliyero_**

Glinda hid under the long black cloak as she swiftly walked through the streets of the Emerald City. After Elphaba's death, things went downhill. She kept her promise to Elphaba about not trying to clear her name, but it killed her a little more each day to hold back. After Elphaba died, she knew she couldn't keep her public authority position. Within a few weeks, she abdicated and disappeared.

She no longer wore pink, she no longer laughed, she no longer loved, she no longer felt. She was an empty shell, and without Elphaba, there was no reason to live.

She walked briskly with her head down into the wind heading to her hidden home, a small apartment in the lower end of the Emerald City. Tears were streaming from her eyes while she tried to keep her balance as the wind threatened her small frame.

It had been a year since she had last seen Elphaba, becoming one with the earth, melting into its core, never again to see the daylight.

She stopped, she couldn't go any further. Her mind wouldn't allow her. She found a small dark ally where she took comfort in the brick wall of the side of a building. The tears continued to stream from her eyes, but her face remained emotionless. She sank down the wall, wrapping herself tighter in her cloak.

_Fuck, it's cold!_ Her thoughts were however interrupted by two men running down the ally she was sitting in. She didn't move. If she didn't move they wouldn't notice her.

…but they did.

"Hey sugarlips, got some candy for us tonight?" She stood up, pulled her hood over her head and began to walk back the way she came, but she was stopped. "Where are you going in such a hurry?"

She yanked her arm out of his grasp and made to start running, but he grabbed her other arm and flung her to the ground. She felt a searing pain as her head made contact with the ice on the ground. She struggled to get up, but the force of the two men on her little body was too much to bear.

Pain. She felt her face stinging from repeated slapping and punching. She fought back, but with having not eaten for weeks at a time, she couldn't hold herself up. She felt a few of her ribs break, and she knew both of her eyes were black. Finally, when they were sure she had no energy, one of them got up to keep watch while the other forced his way into her femininity.

"Please…" she pleaded weakly "…stop." She was in and out of consciousness while the man was violating her, but she still heard him laugh maniacally. She stopped fighting. Maybe she would get to see Elphaba sooner than she thought. With one final blow to the head, she slipped out of consciousness into a deep bottomless pit of blackness.

She awoke sometime later, perhaps an hour, or perhaps twenty-four, she would never know. She knew she was laying in a pool of her own blood. There was someone leaning over her though. She thought it was her attacker, but she thought better. He got what he wanted. Why would he linger? She looked at the face of the man leaning over her, she couldn't see anything, there was blood and tears blinding her. He could tell she was trying to wake.

"Shhh." He said. "Don't move. I'm taking you to a hospital. Don't move."

She tried to protest. She just wanted him to leave her there, to let her die, but she couldn't voice this. She closed her eyes and slipped back into the unconscious world.

"Miss Upland? Are you awake? Miss Upland?" Glinda heard her name being called and was able to open one eye. She saw hospital walls and beds. _Fuck! _She had wished so badly that she would die. She opened her other eye and saw a nurse squeezing her hand. There were so many tubes and needles poking into her body in so many different places, that she couldn't even count how many there were. "Miss Glinda can you hear me?"

She tried to talk, but nothing came out. She couldn't even open her mouth to move it. Her whole body was numb.

"Miss Glinda blink twice if you can hear me." She did so. "Oh, thank heavens! You just rest dear. There's a buzzer in your hand if you need me. Just squeeze your thumb dear."

Glinda looked around the room. _Well, this is just peachy, _she thought, _now everyone knows where I am. Great. This is going to be all over the newspapers._

She saw movement in the corner of her eye and averted her eyes to the doorway, where a man stood. She felt frightened for a second, but suddenly, she recognized his face. _Fiyero? _He dashed over to her bed.

"Glinda!" He took her small hand and kissed it. "Glinda, I thought you were dead."

She looked at him. _I thought YOU were dead. _She thought. She slowly reached out a shaking hand to touch him, just to make sure she wasn't hallucinating from the pain killers she was on. He felt very real.

"I know," he read her mind, "you thought I was dead." He looked down into his lap. "I'm not," he said sorrowfully, "Elphaba is." Apparently he had still to overcome this tragedy.

Glinda tried to sit up, but only succeeded in raising her head two inches and wincing in pain.

"No no no!" he said quickly placing his hand gently but firmly on her shoulder to keep her from trying to move. "Just rest. Don't try to move, you might hurt yourself even more." He looked at his watch. "I should go. We'll talk more. I'll be back tomorrow." He placed a kiss on her forehead, which actually hurt, but she didn't let him see.

Her eyes felt heavy and she suddenly felt extremely tired. She listened to voices outside of her room.

"Is it bad?" she heard Fiyero say.

"Well, it's tough to tell now. There's no telling how long she could take to fully heal, or if she will ever fully heal. At the moment the pain killers are numbing most of her body. As soon as those wear off, we'll be able to tell if her body's neural system is properly sending and receiving signals."

"Is there any brain damage?"

"From the skull fracture? No. Especially not if she's out of the coma this quickly. She was only unconscious for two days, she was able to comprehend what I said to her before. We also did a brain scan, and everything looks good except for obviously, the fracture."

She couldn't listen anymore. She didn't want to hear anymore. Thankfully, her body was just about to slip into another deep sleep. She wished she wouldn't wake up.

She woke up the next day to a doctor holding a long needle in her arm. She nearly shrieked and pulled away, but thankfully the doctor held her arm down in time before she punctured her vein. He tied a bandage around it and patted her arm.

"You're doing very well Miss Upland." Her hazel eyes looked back and forth from him to her arm, and finally back to him. He sat down next to her. "Can you speak Miss Upland?"

A horse whisper escaped her mouth, but it came out. "Please, call me Glinda."

The doctor smiled. "Excellent. And yes, of course Miss Glinda."

Glinda cleared her throat. "May I sit up?" Her speech was still very weak and quiet.

The doctor rushed over as she attempted this feat on her own. He gently placed his hand on her upper back and eased her up. For the first time, Glinda was able to see more than just the ceiling. She looked at her hands and arms which were all black and blue from needles and tubes and of course, her attack.

"Miss Glinda, you've come a long way since last week. We didn't even expect you to make it through the first night. Clearly someone upstairs is not ready for you yet." The doctor flashed a smile at her.

Glinda just smiled back her fakest smile. "Is Mr. Tiggular here?" She changed the subject.

"I believe so," the doctor said, "if I'm not mistaken, he's asleep in the hall. Would you like me to fetch him?"

"Please." She had only spoken a few words so far, but she had many things to say to Fiyero. The doctor walked out of the room, and Fiyero walked in within five seconds. "Why aren't you dead?" she said coldly.

He stopped suddenly, his face full of hurt. "Well, I supposed that was your way of thanking me for saving your life."

"Well, I would have thanked you for saving my life if I wanted it to be saved!" Her voice was back now.

"Glinda, what are you talking about? Why are you being this way? The doctor said you had no brain damage."

Glinda folded her bruised arms across her chest. "I'm sorry." She said looking away. "I guess you don't know I'm not the same person I used to be."

"Why?" he said softly sitting on her bed.

There was a long pause. Glinda looked around the room looking for an explanation. "Elphaba." Was all she could say as tears welled up in her eyes.

He took his hand and brushed away a stray tear from her face. "I miss her too, but it doesn't mean life shouldn't go on."

Glinda began to let out her frustration. More tears flowed out of her eyes and down her cheeks. A year's worth of frustration, angst, and loneliness flowed from her eyes.

"No, Glinda. Don't cry." He took her hand in his, afraid of hurting her by wrapping his arms around her. He wiped her cheek again. "Look, we don't have to talk about this now."

She sniffled. "Okay." She hastily wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry, I just-"

But his finger met her lips, while he smiled sweetly. "It's fine. You don't need to apologize."

"No, just listen." She was beginning to get slightly annoyed, "I want to talk about this."

"I thought you just said-"

"Not about Elphaba, about what happened to me."

"Oh," he said uneasily.

"How did you find me Fiyero? What happened?"

"I just- I was… I was walking down the street, and I saw a bloody heap in the snow. I didn't even recognize you at first, you were so beaten up…" he trailed off, slightly remembering the gruesome sight. "Then you opened your eyes."

Glinda felt tears again. She remembered their days back at Shiz when Fiyero and her dated. During those few months, Fiyero would always tell her she had eyes like no other human being he'd ever seen.

"At the same time I wanted to kill whoever did that to you, I was so glad that I'd found you."

Glinda found herself holding onto his hand tightly, speechless again, though this time not from her injuries. She looked into Fiyero's eyes and saw tears.

"I'm so happy I found you again." He held her tiny hand in both of his as he cried.

Glinda laid back on her pillows and closed her eyes, still holding Fiyero's hands tight. Within a few minutes, exhausted, she cried herself to sleep.


End file.
